Press Coverage

February 18, 2022

The Chicago Tribune - Alvin Ailey Dancers Show Features South Elgin Dancer Sarah Daley-Perdomo

A local dancer will perform for a hometown crowd when the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater comes to Chicago. Sarah Daley-Perdomo, who grew up in South Elgin and graduated from St. Charles North High School, is a company member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and will perform at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago March 2-6. Daley-Perdomo, 35, started out in ballet when she was five years old and continued her training at the Faubourg School of Ballet in Hanover Park. "It was something I realized I had a talent for and wanted to see how far I could go," she said.

February 04, 2022

The Atlanta Journal Constitution - Alvin Ailey Troupe Returns To The Fox

Instinct rather than intention guided Robert Battle, artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, when he choreographed the image of dancer Renaldo Maurice, a Black man, draped in the American flag. Battle had envisioned his piece, “For Four,” as a light opener to a jazz score capturing the pandemic’s pent-up energies. But at some level, Battle said, he needed to respond to the murder of George Floyd and “these fragile times in our democracy.”

February 01, 2022

Dance Magazine - "Why I Dance" Ailey's Jacqueline Green On Representation In Dance

As a Black girl from the inner city of Baltimore, I hadn’t known anything about the codified world of dance growing up. Ballet was something I had only seen on TV—and who I saw in it never looked like me. I never thought that would be my future. My first introduction to dance was at my audition for the Baltimore School for the Arts, and from there a love bloomed.

January 30, 2022

The Washington Post - Pandemic Revived Ailey Dance Company Director's Own Creativity

When he became the artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater 10 years ago, Robert Battle stopped seeing himself as a choreographer. “In fact,” he said in a recent phone interview, “there were parts of me that didn’t really think I would make another work.” Paradoxically, making work is precisely why Battle had landed at Ailey in the first place in 2011. It was his skill as a choreographer and director of his own small troupe, Battleworks Dance Company, that caught the attention of one of the world’s most prestigious modern-dance organizations. Judith Jamison, Battle’s champion and predecessor at Ailey, hailed him as “the creative force of the future.”

January 14, 2022

Tamron Hall Show - Feel Good Friday: Judith Jamison Discusses Ailey Documentary

Artistic Director Emerita, Judith Jamison sits with Tamron Hall to discuss the AILEY Documentary, the 50th anniversary of Alvin Ailey’s beloved Cry, and the highly anticipated 2022 US Tour, kicking off Philadelphia.

January 10, 2022

Vanity Fair - “I Don’t Make Dance For Myself”: Jamar Roberts on Choreography, His Days At Alvin Ailey, And What Comes Next

After two decades, the acclaimed dancer has retired from the company where he made a huge splash in contemporary dance—but, as he explains to Vanity Fair, this is just the beginning. On a Monday afternoon in late November, Jamar Roberts, a longtime star of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, was standing in a studio at the company’s expansive, glass-walled school in midtown Manhattan. But instead of joining the group of barefoot and masked dancers as they rehearsed his piece “Holding Space,” Roberts wore cargo pants and kept on pair of black-and-white polka dot Converse. In August, the 39-year-old dancer announced his retirement from the company he’d been a part of since 2002. Now, he watched the rehearsal as choreographer.

January 07, 2022

The Wall Street Journal: A Peek Behind The Curtain Of A Creative Mind

The problem with being Alvin Ailey was being Alvin Ailey. “Sometimes your name becomes bigger than yourself,” says the dancer-choreographer Carmen de Lavallade of her late friend and colleague. “Alvin Ailey: Do you really know who that is, or what that is?” Jamila Wignot’s moving and poetic documentary portrait, “Ailey,” provides answers, while making clear that its subject had the same questions

December 23, 2021

Dance Magazine Awards 2021 - Honoring Those Who’ve Made Outstanding Contributions to our Field

Robert Battle once told an interviewer on PBS, “Something about movement, very early on for me, signified life.” As a youngster, it wasn’t likely that he would become a dancer; Battle’s legs were so bowed he had to wear braces at night. However, once he no longer needed them, he made up for lost time by dancing every chance he could. When he wasn’t dancing, he liked to don a bathrobe and pretend to preach, sharpening the oratorical skills that he now puts to regular use as artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Today, the warmth and charm of his pre-curtain speeches and interviews make not just Ailey but modern dance feel more accessible for all of us.

December 23, 2021

Dance Magazine: Robert Battle At Full Throttle

When you’re enjoying the easygoing, joke-telling manner of Robert Battle as the welcoming emcee of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, you might not realize there is a ferocious choreographer underneath all that charm. To celebrate his 10 years as artistic director, at New York City Center on Tuesday night the company presented seven works Battle’s created over the last 22 years. Each one held bold surprises—even for those of us familiar with his work.

December 23, 2021

The New York Times: Exploring the Dimensions of a New Era

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returns to New York City Center with stage premieres by Robert Battle and Jamar Roberts and a stunning “Lazarus.”

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